RE: Loudspeakers for ur-quattro (car audio dribble)

["Buchholz, Steven" <Steven.Buchholz@kla-tencor.com>]

... no, the original reply was correct ... no contradiction I could see!
Are you trying to say that someone can blow up 100W speakers if hooked up to
a little 9v transistor radio?!  Let me try to explain it slightly
differently to try to make things a bit more clear.  In the case of the
"underpowered" situation what happens is that when you turn up the volume so
high that the amplifier starts clipping, the output becomes a lot like a
square wave.  A square wave signal has a lot more high frequency content
than a sine wave at the same fundamental frequency.  These high frequency
components are the things that kill the speakers.  The level of the high
frequency components is much greater than you would get with normal audio
signals even at a higher amplifier power without clipping.  In effect what
is happening is that the amplifer isn't underpowered at all ... it doesn't
have enough output to be able to reproduce the desired signal without
clipping, but it can provide sufficent power to damage the speakers ...

I hope this helps!
Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)

> -----Original Message-----
> >Actually, the speakers are not distorting at all... What you 
> are hearing
> >is the final amplifier inside the radio distorting... This 
> happens to >most
> head units when playing them at high volumes.... The speakers 
> >are just
> reproducing the distortion...  Underpowering a speaker will >not cause
> distortion... (if this were true, then you would hear 
> distortion >when you
> are playing your radio at low volumes)...
> 
> Umm, that isn't true at all!  And, aren't you contradicting 
> yourself here???
> You said it was the amplifier in the head unit and then you say that
> underpowering a speaker will not cause distortion.  Well, 
> what do you think
> the amp is doing???
> 
> BTW, A lot of people don't know this but most people blow 
> speakers because
> they run too little power to them, not too much.  Yes, underpowering
> speakers will cause distortion at higher volumes!!!!  You 
> were right the
> first time, and all OE Audi radios (at least all the old ones) are
> underpowered.  At least my 5ktq had 10 good speakers and in very good
> placement, this system in the 200 is pathetic!